


Hurt, Hold, Heal

by tuftyfrog



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Dave/Karkat - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre Collide, shh only hugs now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-28 12:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16723503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuftyfrog/pseuds/tuftyfrog
Summary: Dave hugs his brother, and leaves him behind forever.





	Hurt, Hold, Heal

_“hey…_  
_sorry about this”_

It’s hot, on this rooftop. Maybe it’s the glowing green gas clouds swirling above you — maybe it’s the constant hum of electricity in the air. Or maybe it’s because right now, in this moment, you’re in Houston, Texas, in the height of summer. Somewhere above you it’s there, you can feel it, the unblinking eye of heat and light that would pin your shadow to the sidewalk and wither you up at corners. It’s too hot.

You feel him there, too, or maybe it was just him all along. It feels just the same either way. He’s watching you, and though his glasses hide everything, they can’t hide you from that fact. You can’t look at his face: the sun is behind him, burning bright over his broad shoulders, but maybe it’s his eyes that are unbearable. It’s too hot. His long shadow stretches out between you, like a twisted hand grasping at your feet. You squeeze your shitty sword tighter as if preparing to fight it off, your palms oozing into the grip. Your throat is dry. It’s too hot.

He could kill you if he wanted. It’s a thought that occurred to you often. Sometimes, at night, when you used to lie in bed, willing the hum of the air-con to sing you to sleep, you imagined the door opening. You imagined the tendrils of his silhouette reaching for you, you imagined the glint of a sword drawn. You imagined soft, sinister footfalls approaching. You imagined his breath, hot and menacing. You imagined his arms outstretched - you imagined his weight on top of yours, the inky blackness of his devilish glasses opening up and swallowing you whole. You imagined him holding you, even then.

And it’s gone, now, that summer sun. Your world, that rock on which you desperately crawled, is lost forever. And you’re safe, but you don’t feel safe, and maybe you’ll never feel safe, and maybe you’re aren’t ever going to be safe from him. From that heat and noise and fear and anger.

* * *

 

 _“for what im doing now_  
_this bullshit right here”_

There were so many things you wanted to say to him. And you did, in a way. But somehow you’d never factored in the idea that you’d have to talk to his younger self from another universe. And it’s crazy, that he’s there, he’s sitting right next to you now, atop a tower of brick and bones in a sea of solid green. And he’s…he’s nervous. There’s something about the way he’s sitting, the way he’s folding his hands together. The way he’s looking at you. You can see his eyes now where you couldn’t before, and now his glasses aren’t a mask but a shield. As if you could ever hurt him.

There’s nothing of that monstrous shadow in his eyes any more. It was never in these eyes to begin with. That’s going to take some getting used to. You’ve probably talked to him more in the last five minutes than you ever spoke to him back home.

You didn’t expect to miss him. It’s only now that he’s here that you realise it at all. You’d spent so much time compartmentalising, so much time planning, so much time deliberately not thinking about it, and thinking about how not to think about it, about him, and now you can’t not think about it and it occurs to you that you don’t even care.

Because even though he’s gone, and he can’t hurt you again, there’s some fucked up way in which that hurts. It’s so fucked up, that you still feel this desperate longing for a time and place that was killing you, sometimes slowly and sometimes not. Now, at night, you just have to hold onto Karkat and trust that you’re not going to fall apart, because he's killing you again, because there’s something of him still lodged in your heart: there’s a splinter of him inside you that you can’t get rid of. He’s gone, you’re safe, and it _hurts_.

* * *

 

 _“its really fucked up of me_  
_what im presently doing”_

He's thin. Weathered. His cheeks are flecked with traces of the Texas sun. But not yours, of course. His shoulders aren't as broad, and his neck is more slender. His arms less rugged.

Your arms are around him now. You're hugging a complete stranger. You don't know why you're doing this. Although, in a sense, you must, because you did it to begin with. But then again, of course you did. You've known him your whole life after all.

His face has lines you don't remember. His hands are smaller, more precise instruments. His hair is characteristically dumb as fuck, but it sits in a different way, like it's been blow-dried too many times. He smells of freshly laundered cotton.

You swore off time travel what feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, racing around the loops like nobody's business, you felt like you had all the time in the world – too much, even. You were stretching out, dividing yourself up perhaps, shearing forwards while everything else stayed put. It was uncomfortable, actually, even once you'd got the hang of it enough to take off the Terezi training wheels. You don't miss it. You realise that you don't miss him, either. Not what happened back then, not the person he was, nothing. You miss -- no, you literally  _missed_ \-- the person here with you now. The one you never got to meet until this moment. You kept waiting for him, not knowing that you were doing it. All that time.

His chest burrs against you as he mumbles something that you don't hear. His voice is quieter, more breathy, like he never quite got enough practice. His prominent clavicle digs into your cheek. The ghost of a smile haunts the corner of his mouth. His arms are around you. He's warm.

You're done with having too much time. But right now, you wish you had just a little more.

 


End file.
